Topline
East Coast thunderstorms snarled U.S. air travel Wednesday afternoon, causing ground stops and delays at a half-dozen airports and disrupting thousands of flights.
U.S. air travelers encountered thousands of delays due to storms on the East Coast.
Key Facts
As of 3:10 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, there were nearly 3,000 flight delays and more than 170 cancellations in and out of U.S. airports, according to FlightAware.
Thunderstorms caused ground stops at New York City-area airports Newark and LaGuardia and at Raleigh-Durham airport in North Carolina, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Airspace System dashboard.
There were also ground delays, where the flow of flights in and out of an airport is restricted, at New York’s JFK, Philadelphia and Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.
Airports reporting triple-digit delayed departures Wednesday afternoon include LaGuardia, Newark and the nation’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
Key Background
Weather is the single largest cause of air traffic delays in the National Airspace System, according to the FAA. Bad weather causes roughly three quarters of delays of more than 15 minutes. In summer, triple-digit temperatures, even without a storm, can cause problems for aircraft. “Hot temperatures reduce air density, and that means that the airplanes can produce less power or thrust,” Dr. Bob Thomas, assistant professor of aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, told Forbes last year. “When it’s hot like that and you’re creating less thrust, you essentially have to lower the weight of the airplane to be able to use the available runway and also to meet the climb restrictions that are set out by the FAA.”
